Deals

M7 raises €60m for Central Euro fund, buys logistics asset

The London-based real estate investor has collected an extra €25m for its Central Europe-focused vehicle and added a logistics asset near Budapest to its previous acquisitions in the region. 

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M7 Real Estate has completed the final close of its debut central European fund after collecting €60 million from third-party investors.

The London-based property investor said it received an extra €25 million in capital commitments for the vehicle, called M7 Central European Real Estate Fund I, since its most recent close in October 2016 when it had corralled €35 million.

Via the fund, M7 has targeted both core and core-plus assets in major cities across the Czech Republic, Poland, Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia, investing across all real estate sectors.

The fund was launched in early 2014 after M7 set up an office in Warsaw. Further offices have subsequently been set up in Prague, Zagreb, Budapest and Bratislava.

In addition to the fund close, M7 has also acquired the 650,000 square foot Aerozone Logistics Park in the Hungarian capital. The asset is located close to Budapest’s airport and is of a modern Grade A standard with a range of multinational tenants. The sellers were CA Immo Group, the Vienna, Austria-based property firm, and Union Investment, the Frankfurt-based investment arm of DZ Bank Group. Neither the sellers or the buyer has disclosed the price of the logistics asset.

“The acquisition of the Aerozone Logistics Park demonstrates how we are able to utilize our pan-European network to identify assets in prime locations across Western Europe, CEE and the Nordics, which offer the opportunity for active asset management to deliver value to our investors in line with the individual strategies we have created for them,” said David Ebbrell, M7’s chief investment officer.

M7’s most recently publicized deal was last month when, via a joint venture with real estate giant Blackstone, it acquired a €1.28 billion portfolio of Dutch and German logistics assets from Hansteen Holdings, the London-listed real estate investment firm. It was understood Blackstone used capital from its Blackstone Real Estate Partners (BREP) Europe V vehicle which, as of March, had attracted $7.1 billion of equity from investors.